1964 -
2004

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The Collapse Of Stalinism

IN THE third article in the series marking the 40th anniversary of the
Militant newspaper's first appearance, Roger Shrives looks at how we covered
events around the collapse of Stalinism.

LEON TROTSKY, one of the leaders of the Russian revolution, described the
political regime of Russia and by extension those in Eastern Europe that
modelled themselves on the Soviet Union as Stalinism.

These regimes were based on nationalised planned economies but were
one-party totalitarian states, where a bureaucratic elite dominated the state
and society. They sullied the name of the great Russian revolution with
purges, lack of democracy, gross privileges for top officials and a complete
lack of workers' control.

Trotsky spent his life struggling against the Stalinist apparatus that was
to kill him. He fought for a political revolution which would overthrow the
dictatorial elite and allow the working masses to run the nationalised economy
democratically. This would start to bring a genuine socialist democracy into
existence.

The deepest political changes in the four decades since 1964 have been
brought about by the collapse of Stalinist regimes in the Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe.

After World War Two, Stalinism was able to push these previously relatively
backward economies forward, developing science and industry to a high level,
despite a vicious despotic regime. As society became more complex Stalinism -
based as it was on dictatorial rule and denial of any workers' democracy -
became increasingly incapable of taking society forward.

There were revolts such as in Hungary in 1956 where workers called for
workers' councils in all factories to establish workers' management and a
transformation of the system of state central planning and directing.

They worked out a version of Lenin's programme from April 1917. Their plans
to defend the revolution against bureaucracy included wage rises for the
workers and wage limitations on officials to end the bureaucracy's privileged
position.

Bureaucratic rule

BY THE 1980s, the Stalinist system was in even deeper crisis but capitalist
counter-revolution was not in any way pre-ordained. When there was inevitably
popular revulsion against these dictatorships, the masses demanded democracy
and an end to one-party totalitarian regimes.

They wanted to end the privileges of a pampered elite whose affluence
mocked the poverty of the workers in whose name they ruled. By and large,
however, the opponents of these dictatorships were keen on preserving the
gains of the planned economy.

Militant said in 1989 before the autumn of revolution and
counter-revolution: "Stalinism in Eastern Europe and the USSR has exhausted
all possibilities for real development of the productive forces." We warned of
the possibility of a return to capitalism in these countries.

Sections of the bureaucracy were looking for capitalist solutions to the
problems of an economy being strangled by the bureaucratic apparatus. In
October 1989 we wrote: "An important section of the Hungarian bureaucracy has
drawn the conclusion that a halfway house will never succeed and is prepared
to see capitalism restored. They support a counter-revolution."

At the same time the "people's power" mass movement in the so-called German
Democratic Republic - East Germany - broke out. It is this movement that, in
November 1989, knocked down the Berlin wall and forced out the Stalinist
regime that had built it.

The Berlin Wall

The Wall showed that East Germany's leaders could only sustain their rule
behind a fortified border and by shooting their own citizens as they tried to
escape.

Militant commented at the movement's inception in October 1989: "The
workers and youth want to end bureaucratic rule. They are straining toward a
programme for workers' democracy on the basis of the planned economy."

The movement led the biggest single demonstration so far inside the East
German state. On 16 October, 120,000 took over the centre of Leipzig. Militant
printed an eye-witness report of a demonstration of young people in East
Berlin:

"The youth marched right up to (the police), and started chanting: "You are
the people's police. We are the people. Who are you protecting?" They sang the
Internationale then started a song from the struggles against the fascists,
called "The Workers' United Front". Its words had a particular effect on the
police: "You belong in the workers' united front also, because you're workers
as well!"

Police brushed aside

"The police... were brushed aside as the youth surged forward. In the pubs
conscript soldiers openly discussed with the workers and the youth. One group
was discussing the prospect of their regiment being ordered to fire on
demonstrators. A conscript interjected: "They may order it but we will never
fire on the people. If they do that we may turn on the officers instead."

Even the toppling of Stalinist leader Honecker and his replacement by
fellow Stalinist Krenz was not enough. One worker said: "We want all, all, all
of them removed." In Leipzig the weekly marches reached 300,000. Militant
said: "The instincts of the masses should now be concretised through agitating
for soldiers' committees linked to the workers' committees - the conscripts
will be more than receptive."

Czechoslovakia followed East Germany in its revolutionary upheavals. In
November 10,000 people, mainly students, marched through Prague. They were met
by police batons but within a week half a million students, intellectuals,
white collar and industrial workers, were on the march and even organised a
general strike, though only for two hours.

Militant commented: "While the masses know what they don't want, they are
less clear what they do want."

Capitalist bandits

BY JANUARY 1990, many East German cities were demonstrating against the
Stalinist SED regime's attempts to cling on to power and revive the despised
Stasis (secret police) under a new name.

"Across the GDR... the masses poured onto the streets. In SuhI a warning
strike has been reported. Slogans in Leipzig pilloried the SED, which recently
added the initials PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) to its name. 'Party of
Stalinists' 'Party of Stasis' 'Privilege, domination and stagnation' - these
were some suggestions of what the new initials really stand for. On the 50,000
strong demo in Karl Marx Stadt banners called for free trade unions."

There were aspects of a political revolution in eastern Europe,
particularly in countries like East Germany and Czechoslovakia. Workers wanted
an end to dictatorship without removing the more positive aspects of a planned
economy: "cheap housing, cheap transport and a good social security system -
something which no capitalist economy can offer."

But there was at that stage no party or grouping that could put forward a
programme to achieve that. Support for reunification grew. As we explained:
"Many who call for capitalist reunification are those who hate the ruling
bureaucracy most." Eventually East Germany became incorporated within a
capitalist united Germany.

Power

Similar processes occurred throughout Eastern Europe. In the USSR in 1991,
a potentially revolutionary movement against Stalinism ended up with the
blatantly capitalist Boris Yeltsin taking power and handing the resources of
society, built by the working class, over to a capitalist class that acted
like - and often were - a Mafia.

In the decade after the restoration of capitalism, explained a
correspondent from Moscow, "the new ruling elite has robbed over $120 billion
from the economy... This has been accompanied by a drop in industrial
production of over 50%, slashed living standards and a wrecked welfare state."
(the socialist 29.10.1999)

"The working class have been stunned by the economic consequences of
restoring capitalism... and still do not have their own political alternative
but they are beginning to see the need for one...

As the same article says: "Workers need to have their own political
alternative, a party armed with a socialist programme, if they do not wish
hostile class forces to win."

The collapse of Stalinism led to a capitalist counter-revolution, which was
a huge historical setback for the working class. Today, over a decade later,
the relentless pressure of the profit system is teaching workers in the former
Stalinist regimes much about capitalism.

As the socialist reported (4 September 2004), a survey had shown that: "79%
of east Germans and 51% of west Germans think that socialism is a "good idea"
that was "only badly implemented" in the former Soviet Union and eastern
Europe.

"That is the judgement after 15 years of capitalist unification. Clearly,
in the midst of the current determined campaign by the German ruling class to
cut living standards the opposition and alienation from capitalism is
growing."